reposted from
https://www.eater.com/2019/7/25/8929951/jollibee-purchases-coffee-bean-and-tea-leaf
Cult Filipino Chicken Chain Jollibee Buys Painfully Mediocre Coffee Chain
Plus, the big NYC In-N-Out Burger mystery is solved, and more news to start your day
by Tim Forster@timothyjforster Jul 25, 2019, 11:19am EDT
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Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and fried chicken?
Here’s some rather unexpected mergers and acquisitions news: much-obsessed-about Filipino fried chicken chain Jollibee has purchased California coffee chain the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. The chain is mostly known for hawking serviceable yet forgettable caffeinated brown bean juice in airports and shopping malls, and for being the place where actors read scripts in the nineties.
Jollibee threw down $350 million on the Los Angeles-based cafe chain, which has over 1,000 locations, just under 300 of which are in the U.S. This isn’t Jollibee’s first outside-the-box purchase: in 2018, it also snapped up burger chain Smashburger. The reason seems to be diversification: as unremarkable as Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf may be, it’s profitable and, of particular interest to Jollibee, it has a lot of locations across Asia, where Jollibee wants to rake in more money.